Houston Astros

Houston Astros pitcher Justin Verlander was forced to leave Sunday's start against the Baltimore Orioles with right calf discomfort, according to Brian McTaggart of MLB.com.

Verlander left the game after three innings and 60 pitches and was replaced by reliever Seth Martinez to open the fourth inning. He had given up three hits and a walk in his brief outing.

The two-time Cy Young winner missed the entire 2021 season while recovering from Tommy John surgery. He signed a one-year contract with the Astros with an option for 2023.

Coming into Sunday, Verlander was having an excellent 2022 campaign, going 16-3 record with a 1.87 ERA, 0.85 WHIP and 148 strikeouts. That has played a major part in Houston's AL-leading 81-47 record.

The Astros will be hoping Verlander's injury is nothing more than the aforementioned discomfort. Losing him down the stretch of the season, as the Astros jockey for the top seed in the American League playoffs, would be a huge blow.

Houston Astros veteran Yordan Alvarez was transported to the hospital for further evaluation after exiting Friday's game against the Atlanta Braves with an illness, according to Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle.

A Truist Park EMT and Braves head trainer George Poulis entered the Astros clubhouse shortly after Alvarez exited the game in the fifth inning, according to Grant McAuley of 92.9 The Game.

Mauricio Dubon replaced Alvarez but suffered an injury of his own while trying to catch a fly ball along the center field fence. Jake Meyers entered to replace Dubon.

Alvarez is amid another solid season for the Astros. He entered Friday's game hitting .297/.401/.616 with 31 home runs and 77 RBI in 102 games.

The 25-year-old made his major league debut with the Astros in 2019 and slashed .313/.412/.655 with 27 home runs and 78 RBI in 87 games. He went on to be named Rookie of the Year.

During the pandemic-shortened 2020 campaign, Alvarez appeared in just two games before undergoing surgery after suffering a partial tear of the patella tendon in his right knee. He returned in 2021 and appeared in 144 games, hitting .277/.346/.531 with 33 home runs and 104 RBI.

The Cuban was also a significant part of Houston's run to the World Series last year, hitting .441/.535./794 with two home runs and nine RBI in series against the Chicago White Sox and Boston Red Sox.

However, his production dipped in the World Series against the Braves as he went 2-for-20 in six games.

Houston signed Alvarez to a six-year, $115 million contract extension in June, locking him up through the 2028 campaign. Considering he has been a significant part of the team's success and will be for years to come, extending his contract was a no-brainer for general manager James Click.

The Astros entered Friday's game against Atlanta with the best record in the American League at 77-43. If Alvarez is sidelined for an extended period of time, Trey Mancini could see more time as the team's designated hitter.

Houston Astros shortstop Jose Altuve confirmed to reporters on Wednesday that he will play for Team Venezuela in the 2023 World Baseball Classic.

Altuve last represented his native country in the World Baseball Classic in 2017, with the team finishing in eighth place.

Altuve has been a steady bat in Houston's lineup this season. The 32-year-old is slashing .280/.369/.507 with 20 home runs and 42 RBI through 101 games. He leads the Astros with 106 hits, earning his eighth career All-Star selection this year.

A 12-year veteran, Altuve helped lead Houston to a World Series championship and three pennants over a five-year stretch. The three-time American League batting champion has been the face of the Astros franchise since he was called up to the majors in 2011.

Per Chandler Rome of the Houston Chronicle, Astros first base coach Omar Lopez has been announced as the manager for Team Venezuela. The 2023 WBC is set to begin pool play on March 8, and Venezuela's pool reportedly includes teams from Puerto Rico, Israel and the Dominican Republic.

Rome noted that Astros starting pitcher Luis Garcia, who is Venezuelan, is also a possibility to play under Lopez in the WBC.

The 2023 WBC was originally supposed to take place in 2021 but was delayed because of the COVID-19 pandemic. The field for the tournament was expanded to 20 teams, with the 16 teams that participated in the 2017 WBC earning automatic qualifiers plus four additional teams.

Alex Bregman's home run carried far more significance than the two runs it added to the Houston Astros' tally in a 6-3 win over the Oakland Athletics on Sunday.

Bregman took Cole Irvin deep in the first inning.

The two-time All-Star told reporters after the game a girl from Uvalde, Texas, had asked him to hit a homer:

Nineteen students and two teachers were shot and killed when a gunman opened fire at Robb Elementary School in Uvalde on May 24.

The Astros brought members of the Uvalde community to Sunday's game.

"This is just a little distraction and give a little something back, and that's what the Astros are about," Astros owner Jim Crane said of the Uvalde Strong Day event, per MLB.com's Brian McTaggart.

According to McTaggart, the team chartered buses for 500 community members and gave away 2,500 additional tickets for Sunday's contest.

Houston Astros outfielder Michael Brantley's 2022 season has come to an early end after he had surgery to repair his ailing shoulder.

General manager James Click announced on Friday that Brantley had arthroscopic labral repair surgery.

Brantley hasn't appeared in a game since June 26 and he was placed on the injured list the following day.

Prior to the injury, Brantley was having a solid season for the Astros. The five-time All-Star had a .288/.370/.416 slash line with five homers, 26 RBI and more walks (31) than strikeouts (30).

The Astros didn't announce a recovery timeline for the 35-year-old. Brantley is in the final season of a two-year, $32 million contract he signed in January 2021.

There was a report prior to him re-signing with the Astros that Brantley agreed to a deal with the Toronto Blue Jays. ESPN's Jeff Passan reported no agreement had been reached, and Brantley remained a free agent.

Brantley told reporters after re-signing with Houston that he was "close" on a deal with the Blue Jays, but eventually "everything worked for where I wanted to be."

Injuries have been a problem for Brantley over the past two seasons. He missed 41 games in 2021 but was still named to the American League All-Star team. The Washington native finished second in the AL with a .311 batting average in 469 at-bats last year.

The Astros have been able to succeed without Brantley. They enter Friday with a 72-41 record, best in the American League. Their 11-game lead over the Seattle Mariners in the AL West is the second-largest in MLB (Los Angeles Dodgers, 16 games).

Aledmys Diaz and Chas McCormick have split starting duties in left field with Brantley unavailable. They will likely continue to do so for the remainder of the season.

The Houston Astros acquired Christian Vazquez from the Boston Red Sox for minor leaguers Enmanuel Valdez and Wilyer Abreu on Monday.

Mark Berman of Fox 26 in Houston first reported the deal.

Houston and Boston face off Monday night at Minute Maid Park, and Vazquez was taking batting practice when news of the trade broke.

Because he doesn't have to travel far to change clubhouses, the 31-year-old could make his Astros debut in relatively short order.

Vazquez is in the final season of his three-year, $13.4 million contract and the Red Sox are last in the American League East at 51-52. The trade comes as little surprise, and the bigger shock would've been if he remained in Boston through Tuesday's 6 p.m. ET deadline.

The 5'9" backstop has put together a solid campaign. He's batting .282 with a .432 slugging percentage and eight home runs in 84 games.

Vazquez's defensive value is a little more limited. Per Baseball Savant, he's tied for 40th in catcher framing runs but tied for a more respectable 15th in pop time to second base (1.94 seconds).

Catcher was an obvious position for the Astros to address at the deadline.

Martin Maldonado is a poor hitter across his career, with an OPS+ of 72 in 12 seasons, per Baseball Reference, and this year has been more of the same. The 35-year-old is once again on pace to finish below the Mendoza Line after batting .172 in 2021.

Vazquez will provide more punch to the lineup when he's the designated catcher.

This is the Astros' second notable move ahead of the deadline, as they also acquired Trey Mancini from the Baltimore Orioles.

Trey Mancini's goodbye to the Baltimore Orioles medical staff meant more than the typical farewells from a player to an organization after he is traded.

Mancini was diagnosed with cancer in 2020 but returned to the field and won the 2021 American League Comeback Player of the Year. After Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported he was traded to the Houston Astros as part of a three-team deal, the slugger thanked the Orioles medical staff and the Johns Hopkins doctors that helped him.

"I think they saved my life," he said, per Zachary Silver of MLB.com.

Joe Trezza of MLB.com detailed what Mancini faced as he sat out the entire 2020 season, noting he was diagnosed with Stage 3 colon cancer and needed chemotherapy for months.

"There were times early on when I wasn't entirely sure I’d be playing baseball again," Mancini said. "I'd be lying if I'd say that was the first thing that came to mind. The whole time I just wanted to be healthy long-term and live a long life. And baseball definitely was on the back burner when I was going through all that."

Yet he eventually returned to the field in 2021 and slashed .255/.326/.432 with 21 home runs and 71 RBI. He finished second in the Home Run Derby that year and was embraced by fans who offered their support.

"It meant the world to me, the support I got from my teammates, and all the fans here," Mancini said. "The fans in Baltimore have always been so amazing at rallying behind their players. It didn't surprise me in the slightest bit, the support I got. It meant so much and really helped me get through and get really excited to get back to playing baseball."

Mancini's return was the biggest storyline of the Orioles' 2021 season, but they have been more competitive this year with a 51-51 record. They are just three games back of the final American League wild-card spot, although that didn't stop them from trading the 30-year-old, who could become a free agent after the 2023 season.

ESPN's Jeff Passan provided the full details of the deal:

Mancini is slashing .268/.347/.404 with 10 home runs and 41 RBI this season. He joins an Astros team that is in first place in the American League West at 67-36 and figures to be a realistic threat to win the World Series when the playoffs begin.

While his championship chances improved with the trade, Mancini wanted to thank those with the Orioles who helped him get back to this point.

The Baltimore Orioles are reportedly trading veteran Trey Mancini to the Houston Astros, according to Dan Connolly of The Athletic.

Ken Rosenthal of The Athletic reported it's a three-team deal, with the Tampa Bay Rays getting outfielder Jose Siri from Houston.

The Orioles are finally beginning to turn the corner in their long and painful rebuild. Flirting with a .500 finish (51-51) is a welcome departure for a franchise that owned MLB's worst winning percentage (.379) between 2017 and 2021, per Stathead.

To the point Baltimore was going to be active ahead of Tuesday's trade deadline, though, it figured to be more of a seller rather than a buyer. This might have been the last time to cash in on Mancini as a trade asset since he has a $10 million mutual option for 2023.

The 30-year-old's raw numbers aren't great.

Through 92 games, the first baseman/outfielder has 10 home runs, 86 strikeouts and a .268/.347/.404 slash line.

Mancini's advanced numbers better display how he's performing relative to his peers. He has a .330 wOBA and 114 wRC+, according to FanGraphs, and he boasts a .268 expected batting average and a .468 expected slugging percentage, per Baseball Savant.

His home run total might look a little different as well if the Orioles hadn't pushed back the fence in left field.

The 2019 season will probably remain an outlier in Mancini's MLB career. He hit 35 homers and had a .535 slugging percentage that year.

However, the 2021 American League Comeback Player of the Year—he won the award after a cancer diagnosis in 2020 and returning to the field—has shown he can be a dependable hitter and get on base at a healthy clip.

The right-handed Mancini should have a positive impact on Houston's offense over the stretch run, and his $10 million salary for 2023 isn't a bad investment in the event he wants to return.